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Sigh....what the?????

Maybe someone else has an explanation. But nobody I've talked to yet does.
I've got about 20 frames of honey (both wet & crystalized) from deadouts. Doesn't appear that it is fermented, but some could be. Taste tests prove that most of it is still delicious.
So I thought I'd scratch the caps and put it out in front of my hives to clean up. 6 hives, 2 separate locations.
So.......3 days later (all 65+ degrees, blue sky and light variable wind) and not a single bee can be found on any frame. I mean not a single bee.
I took one frame for each hive and put them leaning directly onto the hive landing board. Bees were all over it instantly.
Move it any distance and interest instantly drops. I've tried from 1' - 20 yards. Distance didn't seem to matter.
There is no strong flow currently in progress up here in central MN.
Any ideas????

Just when I thought I had a tiny idea of what I was doing, the girls prove me wrong again.

Re: Sigh....what the?????

Well you may not have a strong flow, but I bet there is a nice selection of nectar out there for them. This time of year I can get my wet supers out of storage and stack them within 100 feet of my hives and only see a couple dozen bees checking them out. If I tried that in September, there would be war!! My flow won't start for a couple of weeks at least and I pulled a couple of frames of honey to make room for cells. I just put them in an empty nuc box and left it in the bee yard. No interest at all from bees at this time of year, while later in the summer they wouldn't last a day.

Bees will always want nectar before honey or sugar water. I have sugar water on my cell builder and after three days it has gone down 1/2".

Re: Sigh....what the?????

I had this situation earlier in the spring. I did what Michael Bush said and gave them directly to other hives. I did check for disease and all looked and tasted good. This was in mid March and the hives that i gave them to are doing great. I also put some of the frames in the freezer and used them to help start nucs with. I am not sure why your bees are not getting the honey. I had put some frames out early in the spring in a super box and the bees did not touch them. I took them out of the super and they finished them off in a day. I bet if you put them out in a dirth they would be all over them no matter where they were.

Re: Sigh....what the?????

I have mentioned this before, Honey is not the greatest food for Larvae. put a container of 1-1 right next to them and watch..... bottom line is they have nectar and pollen they consider more valuable at this point.

Re: Sigh....what the?????

I've got some recent swarms, they seem to get anything available, established hives show no interest really. I put the supers right on top of the hives, they cleaned out what little honey was there in a couple days. I just put out 5 frames yesterday in one of my yards.... the recent swarm I caught was hitting it pretty heavily, the other hives really didn't show much interest.

Re: Sigh....what the?????

We extracted a super of maple honey on Friday. I left the extractor on the front lawn about 75' from the hive beside the house, intent was, why clean it out when the bees will do it and make use of what's left. On tuesday, I got out the pressure washer, because the bees had not touched it. Similar experience last summer. It's certainly not because they couldn't find it, the bees were flying directly over the extractor on the way to whatever they were working, only about a foot above it.

My conclusion, bees aren't actually fond of honey, if they have something else to work with, and will only go after it, if there is nothing else.....

Re: Sigh....what the?????

Think of it this way, would you rather have beef jerky or a sirloin steak? Nectar is fresh and ready to use, honey is stored and needs to watered down to use. Or would you rather have a mountain house dinner, or fresh homemade dinner? Honey is long term storage for bees.